It’s the birthday of crime novelist Elmore Leonard (1925-2013), known for crisp, spare prose, a phenomenal ear for dialogue, and his 10 Rules of Writing. Rule #10: Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Leonard was born in New Orleans but the family moved to Detroit at nine. After serving two [...]
It’s the birthday of Harold Pinter (1930-2008), one of the greatest and most influential playwrights of the 20th century and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005. While nobody’s terribly excited these days about the Swedish Academy responsible for the Nobel Prize in Lit (they’re not even giving an award this year due [...]
It’s the birthday of Dr. Michael Palmer, who began writing medical thrillers in the late 70s/early 80s almost therapeutically while fighting drug and alcohol addiction. While several of his books became bestsellers, he is probably best known for Extreme Measures (1991), which was made into a movie starring Hugh Grant, Gene Hackman, and Sarah Jessica [...]
It’s the birthday of R.L. Stine (b. 1943), whose horror books for children have sold more than 400 million copies, landing him on all those bestselling-authors-of-all-time lists. He’s perhaps best known for his Goosebumps series, which my husband hates, and my husband is from Columbus, Ohio, which is why I find it ironic that… …Stine [...]
It’s the birthday of Louise Fitzhugh (1928-1974), best known as the author and illustrator of the children’s novel Harriet the Spy (1964). Harriet the Spy’s main character is an intrepid sixth grade tomboy who mercilessly (and hilariously) records the truth as she sees it in her spy notebook/journal. The book was a game changer in [...]
It’s the birthday of Edward Stratemeyer (1862-1930), prolific author of children’s books and the founder of Stratemeyer Literary Syndicate, which brought out a number of wildly popular children’s series and changed the world of children’s publishing. Stratemeyer was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to German immigrants; his father was a tobacconist. Stratemeyer had a printing [...]
Susan’s Almanac Project for October 3, 2018 It’s the birthday of James Herriot (1916-1995), the world’s most famous veterinarian and author of a bestselling series of books based on his experiences as a country vet in Yorkshire, England. Herriot was born James Alfred Wight in Glasgow, Scotland, and studied at Glasgow Veterinary College. Early [...]
It’s the birthday of Graham Greene (1904-1991), one of the most popular and respected British writers of the 20th century. Greene was born in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England, and attended Berkhamsted School, where his father, Canon Charles Henry Greene, was the headmaster; he was bullied there and had a nervous breakdown. His parents sent him to [...]
It’s the birthday of Louis Untermeyer (1885-1977), a poet, editor, and highly popular speaker best known as an anthologist who had a tremendous influence over poetry in the 20th century, introducing students to a wide variety of American poets and promoting the idea that poetry is accessible, not elitist. Untermeyer was born in New York, [...]
It’s the birthday of Louis Auchincloss (1917-2010), estate lawyer and novelist who wrote over 60 books about the privileged upper crust old money Manhattan world he hailed from. (Think of Auchincloss as a male Edith Wharton, only less so.) Auchincloss was born on Long Island, New York, and raised on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. From [...]
It’s the birthday of writer and horse lover Jane Smiley (b. 1949), whose 1991 novel A Thousand Acres won the Pulitzer and who has sometimes been called “America’s greatest living novelist.” (Discuss.) Smiley was born in Los Angeles but moved in infancy to St. Louis, Missouri; her father left early on and she never saw [...]
It’s the birthday of William Faulkner (1897-1962), middle name Cuthbert, who became perhaps the greatest figure in Southern Gothic literature, to the point that all later Southern authors have been doomed to comparison. Faulkner received the Nobel Prize in 1949, and the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is partially named for him. (The “Faulkner” part.) [...]